ATKINS — Red Devils senior Coty Hegeman is much like any other student athlete his age. Besides playing running back for the Red Devils, Hegeman spends time hanging out with his friends. Contrary to every sports movie in existence, Hegeman didn’t think that being on the football team changed much about his social life.

“I’ve had the same friends since we first started school,” he said.

Hegeman explained he spends time playing video games, swimming and at the pool hall. Like many kids his age, he’s a fan of the popular video game series “Call of Duty,” which pits opponents against one another in military-themed combat.

As for football and his teammates, Hegeman said, “We could come in first this year if we really pulled it together and worked hard. I feel like our system is really good for us. Better than what we used to have, for sure. We can use our speed and really spread the defenses out.”

Hegeman averaged 6.6 yards per carry in 2011, and participated in track, where he long-jumped 16 feet last year. With all of these extracurricular accomplishments, you might think it would be a balancing act to maintain that caliber of performance and school studies, but Hegeman said that it’s not. Not for him, anyway.

“I’m pretty smart,” he added. “I don’t even study. It just comes to me.”